Baker: Speak well and obey the rules for college success

I join my faculty and administrative colleagues in welcoming both new and returning students to the Boston University campus. We at the college level (faculty and staff) have been working hard to make this a great academic year for you, and I wish you all the best.

There are some themes that continue to come forward in my work as a teacher of both freshmen and graduate students, as well as in my administrative role as a dean’s administrative role. The constant themes are:

Writing: We all need to improve our writing. An educated person must have mastered the skill of expressing thoughts in lucid prose on paper. Most of our students spend thousands of hours in their college career researching and writing papers for classes. We even have writing centers on campus at the College of Communication and the College of Arts and Sciences to help students learn how to become better and more self-critical writers. Yet, too many students wait until the last minute to do their papers. By doing so, they usually shortchange the quality of their work.

By the way, your computer’s “spell check” or “grammar check” options are not a substitute for proofing your college paper. Critical thinking must come from a person, not a machine.

Speaking: Oral communication is also very important. When we talk to other people, we are often in a verbal negotiation of some sort.

It is important to listen carefully to what others say. Listening is becoming a lost art. Everybody wants to transmit and nobody wants to listen! Yet listening is key to learning in a university culture. We even have oral exams for some advanced degrees.

Class participation is often part of your course grade. But the point is to speak with proper English on all occasions and leave out the “like, you know,” and other such oral dribble, which usually comes with multiple bursts of slang. The use of four-letter words and other slang do not mark you as an educated adult — quite the opposite.

Rules – Plagiarism: A civilized society has to have rules and laws. Dr. John Silber spoke to the freshmen at matriculation about some of BU’s rules regarding drugs and alcohol. I want to speak about another important issue that impacts all of us — plagiarism.

All students need to read or re-read their school’s rules regarding plagiarism. In COM, plagiarism is defined in part as “the act of representing someone else’s creative or academic work as your own, in full or part. It can be an act of commission, in which one intentionally appropriates the words, pictures or ideas of another; or it can be an act of omission, in which one fails to acknowledge or document or give credit to the source, creator or the copyright owner of those words, pictures or ideas.”

Plagiarism is the most serious academic offense you can commit, and it can result in academic probation, suspension or expulsion. In short, do your own work, and acknowledge the work of others. It is also not ethical to use the same paper to satisfy the requirements in more than one BU class, unless you have the permission of both professors.

The internet is a great research tool, but a better one is the BU library. I regret to inform the computer and Internet savvy student, but in their area of expertise, most professors also use these Web tools as well as the library. In the area of plagiarism, many of the recent cases at BU were the direct result of “cut and paste” edits on papers by students using Web resources improperly. You also have Web “paper mills,” which a student may use to buy a paper. Be advised that once again most professors are well aware of the online and other paper mills and their content related to their areas.

Now some general advice:

Keep some of your books. Too many students sell all their books back after the semester ends. Some of your books will be valuable in life-long learning experiences. Later in life you may re-read a passage or book, and find new things because you are no longer studying for course requirements, but for intellectual pleasure. I recently received an e-mail from an alumnus who told me he was glad he kept some of his BU course books.

Find a faculty mentor. Much of the real “learning” happens outside the classroom as students reflect on ideas and go over concepts with professors, who have the experience that students lack. Faculty office hours are an invitation to discuss one-on-one important issues.

Peer pressure: Peer pressure is a powerful force at any college. Ignore it. Be your own person, and choose your friends carefully. It is easy to do what everybody thinks you should do and, in the process, do poorly in school. Your time at college is finite and expensive. Education is mostly a self-guided experience, so make the most of it.

Grades: Sure grades are important, and you are part of a special class of people blessed with the opportunity to study at one of the best Universities in the world. But what you did in high school or last year at BU does not mean you will succeed this year. It will take self-discipline, time management and hard study to succeed.

Finally, every year we tell the freshman class they are smarter on paper than previous classes. But in my experience, that does not translate into better final college course grades. For example, the average final grade in my COM CO-101 course is 2.7 or B-. If the students are better qualified every year, why has that final grade been almost the same over the past 10 years?

I find one of the most common problems in my freshman class is that some students have not mastered how to take notes in a lecture. Taking proper notes is an important skill, it will be needed throughout our lives. So, if the better and more qualified (on paper with GPAs and SAT scores) freshmen students still have an average final 2.7 over 10 years it tells me there are other things going on inside (not paying attention) and outside the classroom to disrupt their academic focus.

I invite you to study hard, and take advantage of the wonderful choices you have at BU and in Boston. The choices are yours to make. Make wise choices in the limited time you are here.